Critical Care in Emergency Medicine Special Interest Group for their White Paper on Early Critical Care Services in Low-Resource Settings in Low-and-Middle income Countries.

This White Paper was submitted by a multi-specialty group of intensivists and emergency medicine providers from Low and Low Middle-Income Countries (LMICs) and High-Income Countries (HIC) with the aim of:

1) Defining the current state of caring for the critically ill in Low-Resource Settings (LRS) within LMICs.

2) Highlighting policy options and recommendations for improving the system level delivery of early critical care services in LRS.

Low and Low Middle-Income Countries (LMIC) have a high burden of critical illness and worse patient outcomes than HIC, hence, the focus of this White Paper is on the care of critically ill patients in the early stages of presentation in LMIC settings. In such settings, the provision of early critical care is challenged by a fragmented health system, costs, a health care workforce with limited training, and competing healthcare priorities.